


Trick of the Light

by Jabberwocky94



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Erik is kinda malicious ngl, F/M, Ghosts, Hallucinations, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, and the difference in erik's lair when christine was there vs. when meg was there in the 2004 movie, anyway here’s wonderwall, my first fic ever actually, please don't judge too hard it's my first phic, yeah that, yknow those demons christine saw in the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27795868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jabberwocky94/pseuds/Jabberwocky94
Summary: The phantom of the opera did exist.At least, that's what they would have you believe.Not even she is certain and she has seen him face to face.
Relationships: Christine Daaé & Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Trick of the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Ghost and his Lady](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302923) by [BozBozBoz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BozBozBoz/pseuds/BozBozBoz). 



When he told her he slept in a coffin, he wasn't lying. He left out a few details, such as the fact that his sleep was eternal, and let her mind fill in the rest. She most likely thought of him as a very strange man with questionable interior decorating skills and a taste in furniture that could not quite compete with his taste in music.

And he _had_ slept in a coffin for years. It was a sort of preparation for eternity. He could at least look forward to death. After all, he lived alone, so when he died no one would find his body.

No one had.

He had hoped that death would bring release from the opera house. Unfortunately he could not leave. In life he had been the master of the walls he had created; in death they were his master. But while he could not leave the building, he had free rein of the building itself, full of trapdoors and hidden panels he had designed for some purpose he still could not understand. And what can limit a lover of trapdoors in a land of trapdoors?

Occasionally he would allow himself to be seen by some chorus girl, only for a brief, flickering second, just long enough to imprint his image on her eyes and leave her feeling thoroughly unsettled by what he hoped she would suppose was a trick of the light. One girl in particular was on the receiving end of his little joke far more often than any of the others. There was nothing truly striking about her: her blonde hair, though shiny, was something she had in common with several of the other girls; her eyes were a nice blue but not remarkable; and her smattering of freckles was only something he used to distinguish her from the crowd. Her looks were nothing much and he shouldn't have even noticed them or come to appreciate the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled or the bell-like laughter she gave so freely. That was beside the point. He doubted she could even sing well.

He was wrong.

He wasn't paying any attention to her, only happened to be passing by her dressing room (he certainly was _not_ peeking into her dressing room; he was a gentleman) when she happened to be singing a short song while brushing her hair. He was enthralled. True, her voice was undeveloped and she lacked the refining she would need to be Prima Donna, but the raw potential she had was insane. She sang with the voice of an angel and why she was only a chorus girl, he could not understand.

He made himself known to her, but only with his voice, always staying behind the mirror. He would not, could not allow her to connect the voice she heard in her dressing room with the masked man she saw far more frequently and for far lengthier times than he would like to admit. If he allowed himself into her world, he doubted he would be able to conceal himself.

She asked if he was the Angel of Music her father had promised to send. He told her yes. She should not have been able to hear him.

_Ghosts are nothing but angels who have not yet been blessed._

Her singing lessons began and she rapidly improved in every way possible. Her dedication was admirable and impressive. Her voice was more beautiful every time he heard it, and that was something he had never thought possible. He wanted her to sing for him and him alone, but how could he keep this gift from the world? Oh, he would if he had the chance.

A few months passed and one day, when she wasn't looking, he stepped through the mirror and into her dressing room. And he spoke.

The tiniest gasp of surprise escaped her when she saw him and realised he was both the masked man and her Angel of Music. She should not have been able to see him.

Their courtship, a strange, dark courtship, had begun.

Perhaps it was her earlier triumph on stage. Perhaps it was the bouquet of roses he had stolen from a young man with hair far too long for his position (what was he? A vicomte? Something small and inconsequential). Something bolstered his courage. That day, that fateful day, he reached for her soft, delicate hand, which she extended with only the slightest bit of hesitancy, and pulled her into the world behind the mirror.

She should not have been able to touch him.

He led her down - into depths she had likely never imagined, behind set pieces in dark corners, under the orchestra pit, past the boiler room where men worked in the red glow (she babbled something about demons, and he silently agreed; those men were as close as one could find on this planet. Or maybe not, considering all that he had encountered in the tunnels beneath the opera house).

_Demons are nothing but ghosts who were never blessed._

They reached his lake and he helped her into his boat. It had been unused for some time now but it served the purpose.

He could see in her eyes the reflection of fire, of candlelight from the candelabras that had not been lit possibly since before she was born. He wished he could share in her reality and see things as she saw them instead of the grim reality of a cavern filled with cobwebs and the rotting remains of unfortunate rats.

He boated her across the lake and up to his home, where he warned her never to go into his room. If she dared to go there, a disaster beyond her imagination would occur. She nodded and took in her new surroundings. Evidently she saw his home as it had once been, warm and full of life, or at least as warm and lively as one could expect from a living corpse, instead of coated in twelve layers of dust and filled with the stench of his own decay.

Now he wasn't even a _living_ corpse.

But she was his living bride, she promised him that. He loved her and she loved him and she would sing for him alone!

And he kissed her. He kissed her and she did not die!

And she kissed him as well, and he would certainly have died if he had not already done so.

She asked for his name and he told her he had no name, though it wasn't the truth. He said it didn't matter; now she was here. No second thoughts. She had decided.

And for twelve days all was right. She sang for him, to him, with him, and he accompanied her on a piano that was so out of tune it caused him physical pain, something he had only experienced one other time since his death, when he was in love with her and did not yet know it. She did not seem to notice the B being closer to an F sharp, and as long as she was happy, he was happy.

The thirteenth morning dawned with her nestled in his arms on a bed in her Louis-Phillipe room. He stroked her curls absently. She stirred. Her elbow fell right through him. She rose, calling for her Angel of Music.

He glanced at his hands - opaque. She should have been able to see him. He spoke. She did not react.

She could not feel him. She could not see him. She could not hear him.

He followed her through his home, watching as she seemed to notice the terrible state of things for the first time. Her panic grew visibly as she searched the whole house for him, leaving only his room untouched. She turned the doorknob and he knew it was over.

Her sharp intake of breath was enough to make him want to cry. He glanced over her shoulder at the body in the coffin - his body. It had not even been able to rot properly; it was bloated and a sickly green colour but after years it had barely changed. Apparently he had been decayed enough in life to be spared that honour in death.

She whirled around, clearly trying to escape that grotesque image, but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him.

Her face told him something was wrong. He raised a hand to his mask, planning to adjust it. There was nothing there. Nothing to cover his misshapen nose, the mangled flesh on his forehead, the malformed lips. Nothing.

She had somehow seen things for what they were or what they were supposed to be. The men who worked in the boiler room were dark, cruel people in his experience. Demons. The candlelight flickering in her eyes was only a pale glimpse of what his home had once been but it was there. The vile mockery of humanity he saw in both his coffin and the reflection in her eyes told him everything. He was a monster.

"What are you?" she breathed.

He was a monster, by appearances and actions. He was a blight, a plague, a curse on the earth. It should have been rid of him - and he of it - long ago. And yet he had not been freed.

"All that should not be." He grasped her wrist far tighter than he ever would have dared to before. "And you are my living bride."

xxXXxx

When she stood alone in her new dressing room, little Jammes could sometimes hear voices like angels, their tenor and soprano tones fusing in a song of passion and terror. In the halls, she often thought she saw a man reaching for her, beckoning to her. She informed the ballet mistress’s daughter and received halfhearted responses; the girl’s closest friend had recently disappeared and the police had not been able to find her.

Besides, she told herself, the masked man in evening wear was only a trick of the light.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favourite parts about Erik is there’s almost no way to mischaracterise him. Malicious? UwU bean? Unable to pick up on social cues but genuinely trying? Clearly stuck under an opera house for the better part of his adult life? Actually terrifying? Uncomfortable? Tragic genius? Fastidious? Basically the only way you can make Erik seem not himself is by making him wear T-shirts and allowing him to feel self-confident.


End file.
